Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

276 THE POPES
The Avignon residence and tradition were founded
in 1305 by Clement V., a Gascon Pope, who thought
peace and the bounty of the king of France preferable
to Italy torn by factions. Outward peace has
rarely been the lot of the Papacy, and when the Popes
ensured it to a certain extent on the banks of the
Rhone, they paid a heavy price for their security.
Subservience to the King of France was an evil which
grew naturally out of their . position, yet, excepting
Clement V., who is said to have submitted his Bull
concerning the Templars to Philippe le Bel,1 they
were personally more independent than it. The
nations of Christendom were too apt to assume that
the Popes of Avignon were French subjects, and in
the political activity ascribed to them, to forget the
more solid benefits of their spiritual administration.
England, for instance, as the sworn enemy of France,
looked at the French Pope with the eyes of her
national hatred. Their false position was their
gravest fault, and at any other time, and in the normal
course of things, the Popes of Avignon would
have made their mark on the Church.
Clement V. and Clement VI. (1342), in a mistaken
policy, strengthened the bonds of the French captivity,
whilst John XXII. laid the foundations of the
Papal palace and fortress at Avignon. The abode of
Clement V. had been in the Dominican Convent.
enedict XII. and Innocent VI. saw the double necessity
of reformation in the Catholic sense, and of
1 Pastor, Geschichte der Piipste, Erster Band, p. 55.